Superbugs: Tip of the Drug Resistance Iceberg

[Guest fountainhall]

I wonder how many read this opinion piece in yesterday’s Bangkok Post? It looks at the rise of the superbug, new strains of bugs which have been developing resistance to antibiotics, those “wonder drugs of modern medicine.” It’s not a new topic, but it is of particular interest to the gay community because of the possibility – perhaps some might say, the fact – that the HIV virus will develop resistance to the drugs currently effective in quite literally keeping millions of people alive.

 

Microbes have the ingenuity that keeps them a step ahead of us. Thus, as soon as antibiotics emerged, so did antibiotic resistance. Within a few months of the first extensive use of penicillin in 1940 - the first antibiotic to treat infectious diseases in humans - resistance to this drug was also reported.

 

Ever since, the development of new antibiotics by humans has been followed by the development of mechanisms to counteract the drugs by the microbes.

 

Antimicrobial resistance also has enormous social and personal costs. When infections become resistant to first-line antibiotics, treatment has to shift to second- and third-line drugs which are nearly always much more expensive and sometimes more toxic as well. The drugs needed to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are over 100 times more expensive than the first-line drugs. In some countries the high cost is prohibitive, with the result that some of these cases can no longer be treated. Similarly, the emergence of resistance in HIV to currently effective drugs could destroy the hopes of survival for millions of people living with HIV.

 

Discovery, development and distribution of new antibiotics is a long, drawn out and expensive process. After investing millions of dollars and years of research, when a new antibiotic becomes available, its misuse renders it ineffective in a very short time. This discourages the pharmaceutical industry from undertaking research and development that promises a very low return on investment. Thus, we are now at a stage where the discovery of new antibiotics has slowed to a crawl.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/230739/superbugs-tip-of-the-drug-resistance-iceberg

 

This should, I reckon, be of particular interest here in Thailand. My own experience, and that of others I speak to, is that many Thai doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics instead of considering other tests and other remedies. This inevitably leads to overuse - and thus, I imagine, to a hastening of the development of more superbugs.

[TotallyOz]

Every time I get sick in Thailand they automatically prescribe anti-biodics. It is nuts. But, when sick, you want to get better fast and take them. What is even worst is when the Thais go to the local pharmacy when sick and they are given this over and over.

[KhorTose]

Every time I get sick in Thailand they automatically prescribe anti-biodics. It is nuts. But, when sick, you want to get better fast and take them. What is even worst is when the Thais go to the local pharmacy when sick and they are given this over and over.

 

Not only are they given antibiotics but they are conditioned to want them and take them. This is one of the repeating arguments I have with my BF, who is college educated and more then reasonably smart. Yes, this practice is clearly a time bomb waiting to explode.

[ChristianPFC]

I got ciprofloxacin when I had diarrhoea, and it worked really well.

 

I checked on wikipedia: It's a Drug of last resort. In Germany, it is only awailable on prescpription, in Thailand I witnessed it was sold over the counter to a 16-year-old boy at 1 a.m., who took it as a precaution.

[Guest]

Are any of the big pharma companies developing new antibiotics just for sale in countries that use them properly?

I once read some speculation that the anti-malaria drug Malarone was deliberately not put on sale in SE Asia, apparently for similar reasons.

[Guest fountainhall]

I once read some speculation that the anti-malaria drug Malarone was deliberately not put on sale in SE Asia, apparently for similar reasons.

I tried to get this for my trip to South America last year. At two hospitals I was told it is not available anywhere in the region.